Vox Nihili posted:

Please expand on this in detail. It's a slow BWM day, after all.

Murderball posted:

Which gang tag would you like?

Fhqwhgads posted:

I...I've never been cool enough to be in a gang, I wouldn't know where to begin

Fhqwhgads posted:

I...I've never been cool enough to be in a gang, I wouldn't know where to begin

Murderball posted:

Which gang tag would you like?

Guest2553 posted:

If the bitcoin bird shop was worth one, I want to be a horse daddy

quote:

Even during the worst stretch of his career, Jason Knight was ready for his next opportunity to prove himself inside the Octagon.

Sure, he’d just lost his fourth straight fight, a unanimous decision loss to Jordan Rinaldi at UFC 230, but Knight was a fan favorite, a classic action fighter who had drawn stylistic comparisons to the popular Diaz brothers (hence the Mississippian’s unofficial moniker of “Hick Diaz”). The Rinaldi fight was just the second of a recently inked contract, so Knight had reason to think that his good relationship with the company would keep him employed.

On Thursday, Knight announced that he had in fact been released by the UFC and went as far as to mention a handful of promotions that he’d be interested in fighting for. It’s a fresh start for the 26-year-old featherweight, who wants to put a rough 2018 behind him.

...

t wasn’t long ago that Knight was a budding contender in the UFC’s 145-pound division, racking up consecutive wins against Jim Alers, Dan Hooker, Alex Caceres, and Chas Skelly from July 2016 to May 2017. He earned three $50,000 fight night bonuses during that stretch, life-changing money for a young man who like so many entered the sport with a full spirit and empty pockets.

By his own admission, the pitfalls of becoming a well-paid fighter overnight tripped Knight up. After knocking out Skelly, Knight went on to lose his next four. The worst part of it all wasn’t just the poor results or how Knight was fighting. It was why.

“I got caught up in the lifestyle,” Knight said. “I won four fights in a row in the UFC, I made several hundred thousand dollars. I went from making a hundred thousand dollars a fight and being able to live that lifestyle of having a hundred thousand dollars in my account to after the Ricardo Lamas fight I only had a $30,000 paycheck. I still tried to live the hundred thousand dollar lifestyle for a while like I had that money there.

“Next thing you know I started getting myself in debt and it went from I was fighting for fun to I had to fight to get the money. I had to get this money to get my life back straight, to get back on top. What I’m doing right now I’m pretty much completely out of debt and I’m getting my life to where I don’t have to worry about fighting to provide for my family and stuff. I’m providing for my family outside of that so I can get back to fighting for the love of the fight.”

H110Hawk posted:

That was you? It made my wife and I laugh fairly hard.

BonerGhost posted:

Imagine, if you will:

The year is 2024. The markets have crashed, Wall Street is a wasteland. Executives and traders in tattered suits huddle in the lobbies of banks, terrified of the guillotine mobs, burning whatever they can find to keep warm. The cash and those few who tried to hold onto it were burned what seems like ages ago; the deposit slips were the first to go, followed closely by the HELOC and car loan documents. The citizens have begun to starve as agriculture halted; without farm insurance, the farmers all lost their tractors and combines and have hanged themselves. Silicon Valley, chronically malnourished from Soylent-only diets, fell to an especially virulent strain of flu for which no one was vaccinated. Those few venture capitalists and computer programmers who remained were rounded up and locked inside Starbucks stores to eventually starve while thinking up new ways to disrupt coffee brewing. Las Vegas, with no electricity to run the lights and no tourists to lose their shirts, has been reclaimed by the desert and her desiccated, peeling denizens continue to live in fear of some specter known only as messikins.

The only people still holding to some shred of humanity and civilization are those who walk in ugly, sheer tights, drinking horribly flavored shakes, made wealthy by their investments in whole life insurance, kept sparkling and beautiful with their drop-shipped cosmetics and fingernail stickers.

...If only I'd gotten in early... trembles on the wind

quote:

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a type of electronic cash that allows people to spend or trade via a peer-to-peer network without the involvement of banks or other intermediaries. It is a cheap, efficient way of transferring funds or holding value, which can be converted back into sterling at any time. I had used it before to buy treatment online for my mother after she was diagnosed with cancer. I had also dabbled with investing in it in 2013, and made and lost some money: bitcoin is prone to sudden fluctuations in value. But the market seemed to have moved on, and I decided it could be a good way to make some profit on my savings.

At first I deposited £5,000; at the time, January 2017, bitcoins were about $600, so I bought seven or eight and spent the rest on other cryptocurrencies. But over the next few weeks I became hooked and ploughed in a large chunk of money – £23,000 in all. I remember telling people, “I really think the value of bitcoin could rise to $2,000 this year.” I could never have predicted it would peak at 10 times that. By the middle of spring 2017, my investment had risen to about $300,000, and by the summer it was at half a million. Media interest in bitcoin was growing and friends kept asking how they could get into it, so I started a Facebook group, then a website and finally a podcast devoted to the subject. As excitement built, more and more people got involved, forming the conditions for a bubble; but many of us were too caught up in the hype to exercise caution.

At the end of 2017, bitcoin had reached almost $20,000 and my portfolio had ballooned to about $1.2m. That is when I got a little out of control. I have always been an entrepreneur, and since I was a kid I had dreamed of buying my local football club, Bedford Town, becoming chairman and getting them into the league. I thought the project might cost £5m, so that was the figure I decided to aim for. I estimated I could get there within six months.

By this time I was travelling the world doing interviews for my podcast, taking friends out to expensive restaurants and buying extravagant gifts for my family. I am not the kind of person who puts everything away for the future, and though I donated £6,000 to my local hospital, much of my spending was quite frivolous. It might have been more sensible to buy a couple of houses, but I became overambitious. This felt like my one shot at achieving that childhood dream.

At the end of January 2018 the bubble burst and bitcoin’s value suddenly fell. There had been a few drops during 2017 but it had bounced back, so I was not too worried. But over the rest of the year, I watched it sink lower and lower, along with the other cryptocurrencies I had invested in, all the time thinking, “Well, there’s no point selling now…” That was my attitude throughout last year, as bitcoin’s value continued to fall. Pretty much everything I had built up was wiped out.

There are many who invested a lot more than I did and ended up with far greater losses. I wish I had taken everything out before the bubble burst, but I do not waste too much time on regret. I have earned money in the past through hard work and enjoyed it more. At the moment, I am enjoying making my podcast, which provides more than enough money to live on. I have sold most of my bitcoin, which is currently worth about $4,000 apiece, to give me a cushion in case the business has a bad month. But if I had to choose between the $1.2m and the podcast, I would let the money go again – I love what I do now.

I still believe that bitcoin is a force for good. I recently interviewed Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation, who was explaining how it helps people living in authoritarian regimes to prosper – for example, women in Afghanistan who are not allowed to open bank accounts can still work and get paid in bitcoin. It is a step in the right direction. My main focus now is exploring how bitcoin could help stabilise an increasingly volatile world.

TraderStav posted:

My God this is my kind of art right here.

Please write a short story.

Hyrax Attack! posted:

The shutdown is showing both the distressing number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and also those with no living expenses saved up. I know it’s a ridiculous situation not at all their fault and they should be getting paid, but still crazy how missing two weeks of pay immediately requires food banks to be set up for Coast Guard workers.

With the low unemployment rates I wonder how many TSA workers are getting better gigs and not coming back.

Hyrax Attack! posted:

The shutdown is showing both the distressing number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and also those with no living expenses saved up. I know it’s a ridiculous situation not at all their fault and they should be getting paid, but still crazy how missing two weeks of pay immediately requires food banks to be set up for Coast Guard workers.

With the low unemployment rates I wonder how many TSA workers are getting better gigs and not coming back.

Hyrax Attack! posted:

The shutdown is showing both the distressing number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and also those with no living expenses saved up. I know it’s a ridiculous situation not at all their fault and they should be getting paid, but still crazy how missing two weeks of pay immediately requires food banks to be set up for Coast Guard workers.

With the low unemployment rates I wonder how many TSA workers are getting better gigs and not coming back.

Cacafuego posted:

Where are these articles about how the shutdown is affecting people? I want to read them.

Also at the idea of the lazy, brain dead morons that make up the ranks of the TSA quitting and getting “better” jobs. They certainly won’t find one that pays $40k or whatever I thought I read the base pay of a new TSA employee, nor one that allows them to sit all day and do nothing, nor one that allows them to power trip and scold people.

Hyrax Attack! posted:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/business/federal-shutdown-divide.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/business/contractors-government-shutdown-effect.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

TSA agents at SeaTac have always been alright, although I don’t fly much. They should be getting paid for their work, many support families.

Harry posted:

Federal government pays far better on the low end than private. I’m still confused by some of the articles that came out in December about how people weren’t sure how’d they’d make their rent. I guess their normal plan is to pay it late.

Cyrano4747 posted:

The middle can be a bitch, though. If you're a GS7 you may very well make more money in the private sector as a contractor.

OP posted:

So i bought a vw golf r in August 2018. It was a total of $51,000 (yes, i hosed up). I bought this car after signing w/ for a new job that starts in Aug. 2019. They gave me a sign-on bonus of $25k, but after taxes, i received $16K. I used it to pay of fall my credit card debt, which was about $14K. So i only had $2k left.

Im a 3rd year medical resident. I make about $55K, ($1500 bi-weekly). I pay $900 for my car, $900 for my apt (split w/ my gf) and utilities. After all is said and done, I only have about $300 for spending money.

When i start my job in Aug. 2019, ill be making around $160,000 after taxes.

I have a 16 year old toyota sequoia. it has about 195,000 miles.

I had my ar appraised and they said they would buy it for $31,000. That would put me $20,000 in the whole, but I would take the $20,000 from the $31,000 and pay that off. I would no longer have the $900 monthly payment and could be used for other things.

However, my score would be affected and who knows how long my sequoia is gonna last?

Ive spoken to some people and they said i should just bite the bullet until i start making more money in August 2019.

Any advice?

OP posted:

I’ve only made 4 payments of $900 w/ 6.55% interest.

Not OP posted:

Do your taxes asap. You should get a portion back that was withheld on that bonus to tide you over until August.

OP posted:

How does that work by doing taxes sooner? I received the bonus back in dec 2018.

SiGmA_X posted:

I want to sell my car back to the dealership, but ill be $20,000 in the hole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/afbpyt/i_want_to_sell_my_car_back_to_the_dealership_but/

He connected getting a signing bonus and a job 12mo down the road with being able to afford the car, but the signing bonus actually went to paying off his credit card debt which is around a third of his gross income. Oh and he had a good reliable minivan. And he has horrid writing skills.

He also thinks if he owes close to $51k, can sell the car for $31k, he can pay off the underwater part of the loan with $20k of the $31k he would get for the car. What in the proper gently caress? This needs to be attached to the dudes healthgrades.com profile.

And he is paying 6.55% on a brand new car that he paid about $5-7k over MSPR, part of what I assume is dealer gap insurance and extended maintenance and sales tax. That all should have been a red flag... Oh not to mention buying a car that costs as much as your salary.

Jesus gently caress.

...Something something, America.txt.....

CmdrRiker posted:

English might not be their first language.

It's good to pay off your debt so you can just get saddled with more debt.

Reddit posted:

https://www.reddit.com/r/antiMLM/comments/af8b3e/blocked_by_a_hun_after_using_simple_maths/

quote:

quote:

I don't know what to do anymore, I am 29. I am the sole income in my house hold. I have two small kids (3yo and 1yo) and a wife. My wife(24) doesn't work and has no skills / resume to speak of she has been a house wife for the past 5 years.

I am drowning, I don't know what to do. I cut everything I could think of. I cut cable, I cut netflix, I cut all gaming services, I cut my spotify, I cut buying food at Walmart and going to aldis or the dollar store. We shop only for whats on sale. We plan our weekly dinners, we don't eat breakfast. I only get to spend 6-7 dollars a day for lunch, I only get 200 for gas (I drive a truck 30 minutes one way to work).

We only eat out once a month, and it's always mcdonalds for the kids, we never go anywhere fancy.

We are starting to blame each other, hate each other.

I don't know what to do. We filed bankruptcy to get away from loans that where killing us, and moved back to the city to find work. Nothing is helping, it all feels hopeless.

Edit: I am seeing a lot of posts from people who don't have kids, please, if you don't have kids don't bother you likely don't understand allot of why my budget is how it is.

Edit: So a ton of good advice and support, some not so good from the obvious reddit peanut gallery. Thank you r/personalfinance for the help and guidance.

Edit: I want to say what I plan on doing but I really want to stay as unnamed as possible, just know that many of you really impacted what I will be doing going forward, thank you. I will get a remind me going to repost a update in a few months when we have this sorted, or if we are homeless, whichever happens first.


My Current Monthly

SiGmA_X posted:

He connected getting a signing bonus and a job 12mo down the road with being able to afford the car, but the signing bonus actually went to paying off his credit card debt which is around a third of his gross income. Oh and he had a good reliable minivan. And he has horrid writing skills.

UCS Hellmaker posted:

WIfe not working is the main thing hurting them but daycare is expensive if both parents work, the biggest thing would be a better paying job.

SlapActionJackson posted:

Dude just doesn't make enough to support a family of 4 on his own. And his wife can't work because the jobs she'd qualify for as unskilled labor don't pay enough to offset the daycare for two kids (which can easily be $2K/mo at that age in a LCOL area). They're just turbofucked unless they can get some free childcare to let the parents work more.

BurgerQuest posted:

Speaking of turbofucked, how do you help someone who won't help themselves? Not to get all E/N but I've sunk 10k AUD into my sister the last 6 months because she has mental issues and can't keep to a simple loving budget. The whole world is against her somehow.

I recognise it's very BWM but I'm at the end of my tether (though not my savings/emergency funds yet) with the behaviour. I know the standard answer is going to be sever and I'm probably going to have to do this shortly since I'm not going to be able to help anyone if I gently caress my own finances up indulging in this poo poo.

I see ads here for personal budgeting services, which as best I can tell is very BWM, but assuming I can get her to commit to one and cover the stupid fees, is this genuinely likely to help or is she just going to blow the spending money they allocate her anyway (but atleast her rent and bills will get paid? she can live on bread for a week and maybe learn something).

This is in Australia.

Hyrax Attack! posted:

The shutdown is showing both the distressing number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and also those with no living expenses saved up. I know it’s a ridiculous situation not at all their fault and they should be getting paid, but still crazy how missing two weeks of pay immediately requires food banks to be set up for Coast Guard workers.

With the low unemployment rates I wonder how many TSA workers are getting better gigs and not coming back.

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

I would say that any debt over 7% interest is an emergency, and you should absolutely be raiding your emergency fund for it.

"reddit posted:

As were now into 2019, I’m looking to fill up my TFSA(think roth IRA but ) with investments and in the past I’d had a person do it for me, but the $200 a trade does not seem worth it.

Guest2553 posted:

kimbo305 posted:

The Sequoia is pretty reliable, but it's an SUV, not a minivan.

CmdrRiker posted:

I've never had a professional handle my investments, but that seems outlandish. Is that still too high if you're paying a professional to make the decisions for you?

SiGmA_X posted:

I'm guessing its a replacement for the annual AUM based fees. It feels really loving high.